This invention relates generally to the field of golf clubs and more particularly to the field of golf clubs having relatively large club heads of the type referred to as metal woods.
As is well known in the industry, golf clubs are specifically constructed to perform certain tasks, with a set of clubs being divisible into three main groups or typesxe2x80x94the clubs known as woods or, more commonly now, metal woods, the clubs known as irons, and a putter. The metal woods are long-shafted, low-lie (lie being the angle of the shaft relative to the ground when the club head is grounded) clubs with large club heads which are relatively heavy and full bodied, typically having a large striking surface backed by a generally rounded body mass. Metal woods are designed to drive the ball the longest distances, the ball being hit from the tee box where the ball is placed onto a tee for striking or from a good lie in the fairway or rough. The metal woods are typically designated as a driver or a numbered wood of either number 1 or 3, although it is known to also produce wood numbers of 5, 7 and even 9. The lower the number, the farther the ball is designed to travel after being struck, with higher number woods producing more lofted and therefore shorter shots. The irons are clubs used for middle and short distance shots, including shots from the tee box for short holes or holes where control is important and shots from the fairway, the rough, waste, sand or grass bunkers. The irons have medium and short shaft lengths relative to the woods, striking surfaces with greater loft so as to hit a higher shot with less roll upon impact, and the club heads are generally blade shaped with higher lie angles. The irons are usually numbered 2 through 9, plus higher lofted and thus shorter hitting irons designated as pitching wedges and sand wedges. The lower the number, the farther the golf ball should travel when struck, with the higher numbered irons and the wedges producing shots with extremely high trajectories and minimal roll. Often the 4-iron and lower are designated as long irons, the 5-iron through the 7-iron are designated as middle irons, and the 8-iron through the wedges are designated as short irons. The final type of golf club is the putter, used on the greens to roll rather than lift the ball. With the irons and woods, the general rule is that long shafts are combined with less lofted club faces in order to promote distance, the long shaft providing greater club head velocity and the low loft (i.e., a striking face closer to perpendicular to the ground) causing a more level ball flight path with maximum roll. For the shorter distance irons, the shafts are kept short to improve control and swing consistency, since maximum club head velocity is not required for the shot, and the loft of the striking face is very high so as to lift the ball and minimize roll after landing.
Playing consistently good golf remains foremost a matter of skill, even with the vast amount of technological advances made relative to golf club design, material of construction, instruction and practice techniques, etc., since the inception of the sport. Designing clubs which maximize distance is important, but designing clubs which maximize control and accuracy is probably of greater overall importance. For most golfers, hitting the irons designated as the 2-iron, 3-iron, 4-iron, 5-iron and 6-iron pose the most problems in terms of control and consistency, because the shafts are still relatively long in comparison to the higher-control, short-shafted short irons, while the club head weight and body style is lighter and much less forgiving of error than the club head weight and body style of the metal woods. In addition, golf courses are designed such that shots of a distance calling for the 2-iron through 7-iron must often be hit from the rough, waste, sand or grass bunkers when the initial drive from the tee is not accurately played. Because the golf ball may lie in high grass, the club which is designed to provide the correct distance may have a club face with too low of a loft, a shaft too long to allow for a steep angle of attack on the ball, and a club head too light to pass through the rough or sand to extricate the ball, requiring the golfer to use a higher lofted short iron to remove the ball from a bad lie. Because the shorter iron is required in these situations, the ball cannot be driven the desired distance and extra strokes will be required to complete the hole since the golfer is forced to play a shorter shot.
Certain other situations encountered on the golf course demand shots of a type which the standard clubs are not designed to provide. For example, when hitting into a stiff wind or when hitting a shot beneath low tree limbs, the golfer wants to hit a shot with low arc or trajectory. In order to avoid lifting the ball, a longer club with less loft is chosen and the golfer chokes down on the grip to shorten the effective length of the shaft and moves the ball back in his stance. With the ball back in the stance, the swing will be more vertical, imparting more backspin to ball and undesirably causing it to take a higher trajectory. Choking down on the shaft alters the performance characteristic of the club, lowering the swing weight of the club and reducing shaft flex. The lie of the club is now flatter, causing the toe of the club to dig into the ground and push the shot to the right. Another non-standard golf shot is the use of a 3-wood or 5-wood to chip a ball onto a green from the fringe or apron. Here the fairway wood is used like a putter, with the added mass and weight of the club head minimizing friction and resistance from the fringe prior to contact and with the increased loft relative to a putter lifting the ball out of the fringe to travel in the air a short distance before beginning to roll. However, in this instance the shaft of the club is very long, often about 8 inches longer than the putter shaft, and the lie of the club is much too flat relative to the more upright angle of the shaft when the club is used as a putter to provide for a proper lie angle when hitting this shot. If the golfer extends the club head outward to correspond to the proper lie angle designed into the club, the shot is very difficult to properly align.
It is an object of this invention to provide a golf club or set of clubs equivalent to the standard 2-iron 3-iron, 4-iron, 5-iron and 6-iron with regard to the distance of travel of a golf ball when struck by the particular club, which incorporates desirable characteristics of a metal wood club head into a short shafted club, such that the shorter shaft length provides for increased control and consistency, the greater club head mass and weight provide for easier penetration of the club head through rough or sand, and the combination of all elements provides a set of clubs with the same swing weight as the equivalent standard irons. It is a further object to provide such a club or set of clubs where the club head is constructed as a metal wood head, but with increased weight over club heads found in drivers or fairway woods, where the swing weight is equivalent to the swing weight of the corresponding iron, and where the length of the shaft and lie of the club are equivalent to that of a middle or short iron, which results in a club with a shaft length approximately one inch shorter and a lie approximately 2 to 5 degrees greater than the equivalent iron. It is a further object to provide a golf club which is the equivalent in striking distance to irons but with a metal wood club head, where the metal wood head increases accuracy, because with the center of gravity of the club head moved back from the striking face, the club head has greater resistance to twisting for shots hit off-center, and further because the inherent curvilinear face of the metal wood club head compensates and corrects when the ball is struck off-line and off-center.